Historically, EAS systems have been deployed in an autonomous fashion, i.e., the EAS systems were not connected to each other or to a device manager as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,469 to Balch et al. (“Balch”). Each EAS system's synchronization has been derived from a zero crossing of a local Alternating Current (“AC”) source (where the item is plugged in). If an EAS system is not synchronized, the EAS system experiences poor pick performance or false alarms.